I have never seen so much spawn kills in another multiplayer games like in NS2: At the very least, you could give players their resource points back if they get killed as an egg while evolving into a higher life form.
AiorosJoin Date: 2003-03-24Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
worst think which could happen is doing these updates week by week.
This would result into a broken game week after week till all changes are in.
its impossible to balance the game with like "only" updating the movement code first.
players will rage even more about "aliens" or "marins" winning all the time then ....
Way I see it the sooner the entire thing is implemented the sooner we can see who is right. Besides would you prefer everyone talk and talk about it for months just delaying the thing since it came out? It has been nearly 4 months of no game changing balance updates. Even simple fixes like modifying the alien spawn system for different sized games are neglected. Fact is there is nothing else in the works until this thing goes through and let's be honest with the amount of time he put into that thing it will be implemented one way or another.
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2013
I find the distortion of the cloak shader to be too noticeable. Preferably it is toned down, to be only noticeable if the marine player is looking straight at the alien and moving towards it.
(Edit:) Is Camou using a different shader to shade Cloak? I can definitely see a "cloaked" Drifter or alien from 20 meters way.
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
Easily is a lie, completely depends on where they are hiding when they're doing it and if they're moving their own camera; keeping themselves completely still while in a blend type area you may not notice them until last second, or they're just hiding and will come out once a team mate arrives. I think the cloaking is very powerful, and am in personal debate if silence should also be attributed to it
I've blended with a wall remaining fully still and had top level players skip right past me, all depends on where you do it and making sure you're not even moving your mouse. Especially if team mates are near by their attention will be focused on where they last heard sound
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
Easily is a lie, completely depends on where they are hiding when they're doing it and if they're moving their own camera; keeping themselves completely still while in a blend type area you may not notice them until last second, or they're just hiding and will come out once a team mate arrives. I think the cloaking is very powerful, and am in personal debate if silence should also be attributed to it
Because that is clearly easy to learn/understand and not at all luck based. The new camo is just bad.
Vanilla camo is very underpowered; this just makes it worse.
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
Easily is a lie, completely depends on where they are hiding when they're doing it and if they're moving their own camera; keeping themselves completely still while in a blend type area you may not notice them until last second, or they're just hiding and will come out once a team mate arrives. I think the cloaking is very powerful, and am in personal debate if silence should also be attributed to it
Because that is clearly easy to learn/understand and not at all luck based. The new camo is just bad.
Vanilla camo is very underpowered; this just makes it worse.
Guess you don't play BT much because it's mixed in with silence (which I think should only scale to a certain degree, being full silent)
And it's not luck based, you can see w/ alien vision off if you're properly cloaked with a wall or sticking out
e2: There's a bunch of stuff on that list that I either like the sound of or am interested in trying out, and a few I don't like (camo nerf again?), but increasing the minimum skill level required to play the Alien starter class is just such a terrible idea.
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
Easily is a lie, completely depends on where they are hiding when they're doing it and if they're moving their own camera; keeping themselves completely still while in a blend type area you may not notice them until last second, or they're just hiding and will come out once a team mate arrives. I think the cloaking is very powerful, and am in personal debate if silence should also be attributed to it
Because that is clearly easy to learn/understand and not at all luck based. The new camo is just bad.
Vanilla camo is very underpowered; this just makes it worse.
Guess you don't play BT much because it's mixed in with silence (which I think should only scale to a certain degree, being full silent)
And it's not luck based, you can see w/ alien vision off if you're properly cloaked with a wall or sticking out
I do play the BT mod, and it is nice to have silence and camo combined as the two seperate aren't worth much. However, the new camo is silly and luck-based. Only being cloaked on very specific surfaces with no real way to tell if it's working really limits the usability of it.
Actually with the player numbers right now, you could almost say that the forums are indeed the player base, at least the one that still plays the game regularly. The game's population has gone down to 1000 - 500 concurrent players by now, from almost 10000 at the time of the Gorgeous update. The game has become stale, it needs a reboot like this, similar to how NS1 took off after the update that made it NS1 2.0.
That couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, concurrent player counts in March were around 2000, not 10000. The 10000 count was from the free weekend only. Secondly, the Gorgeous update is one of the main reasons we lost so many players. Skulks went from fun to unplayable in an instant. I watched as entire servers full of people just quit the game and never came back.
As for your point about the forum population, you are very far from the truth. The forum population doesn't represent the playerbase in the slightest. If anything, the forum posters represent the opposite of the playerbase. If you don't believe me, I have an easy way to show you what I mean. Make a thread here in General Discussion stating that servers with 20+ people are better than small servers and watch how many disagrees you get. Then, load up NS2 and look at the server browser and you'll see how larger servers are far more popular than smaller servers even though the forums would have you believe otherwise.
If you want more proof, just look at the "New Docking" thread. Then go in game and ask random pubbers what they think of Docking. The vast majority greatly dislike the new Docking and rate it lower than even Refinery, which is sad as it was the most popular map in pub games.
These forums are made up of around 75% competitive players, play-testers and map-testers, and long-time NS1 vets that have vastly different opinions than the average player. Changes are based on their feedback and it is destroying the game. The forum posters need to get over their hardheadedness and realize that their opinions aren't universal. If you don't believe me, just look at player counts.
There are so many things that UWE could do to make this game better if only they got information from the actual playerbase and didn't base everything off of forum posts. UWE could do something as simple as adding a feedback box in the main page of the Natural Selection 2 client, where feedback from players is sent directly to the developers.
UWE is a collection of amazing people trying their darnedest to make this game great, and I applaud them for that. They are a small group that doesn't have the resources or manpower to be able to do everything or to do it quickly, and I realize that. They have improved performance and added content, which are both great, but they need to realize what they should be focusing on: the average player. Doing anything else at this point in time will just lead us to the end.
I find the distortion of the cloak shader to be too noticeable. Preferably it is toned down, to be only noticeable if the marine player is looking straight at the alien and moving towards it.
I've the feeling that to see or not an invisible skulk might be too software dependent. Like in Counter-Strike where some DirectX settings (dxlevel in starts option) were refused in some leagues (i.e. dxlevel 81 was enforced) due to unfair smoke/flash duration/opacity (Plus I wouldn't be surprised that some shaders doesn't even run the same on all different video cards).
What I really loved about total invisibility is the fact that everyone, independent of software and hardware, was certain that if they were playing an invisible lifeform, they were truly invisible (i.e. I don't see how a "total invisibility" shader could be problematic).
As for the balance mod; I can say I approve the fact that the Marine Comm can once again drop without cooldown (with marines having cooldown to pick them up).
I disagree on btmod - not completely but 90% of it
I just couldnt accept the fact that the gameplay is 170 degree changes from the first time i played ns2
I may not a NS1 player but you should consider my opinion as a relatively new NS2 player and the future NS2 player
The learning curve is getting steeper and there will be a huge gap between new players and casual players.
Maybe you should instead listen to the 8,000 players that aren't playing. Instead of the active public servers I could count with my fingers at any given time. Who knows, maybe they want a game with more depth, round variation, greater strategic opportunity and a higher skill ceiling to encourage improvement across all roles.
I just hope a lot of work is put into a heavily recommended tutorial before the next big push to try and convince these players to come back and increase retention time of any new ones.
And then increase update rates (capped at 20 I believe), lower interpolation values, make first person spec half decent, implement proper demo recording features and allow demos to be played accurately across NS2 installations, add a chat frame for scrolling through chat history, enable copy and paste for chat and console, add options to server details box for close join and auto join, add console commands for more actions so that things like chuckle can be bound to keys, add a unique key configuration for the commander hotkeys. Wow, I could do this all day. NS2 3.0 on the horizon.
BiteyJoin Date: 2012-05-06Member: 151622Members, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester
I always hypothesized the reasons people quit is often due to the amount of skills it requires to understand the game from the beginning. There is very little support for a brand new player who launches the game and usually within the first 10 hours a new person decides to stick with something or leave it. You should really consider asking friends who stopped playing ns2, what made them quit trying in the first place.
Perhaps if you start figuring out why there was a very rapid drop off since release, then you could attempt to solve the player retention problems. And from my own experiance, the biggest issue with ns2 is not the game balance or the features involved, but the lack of any attempt to break things down to a fresh player starting the game. When a person is basically given a gun or a lifeform and a basic "Go get em" they might easily find themselves overwhelmed. Not to mention the harsh punishments ns2 throws at players for failure.
Rush on working out a tutorial system for new players for the next free weekend, and you should have a much better time holding onto newer personal.
I always hypothesized the reasons people quit is often due to the amount of skills it requires to understand the game from the beginning. There is very little support for a brand new player who launches the game and usually within the first 10 hours a new person decides to stick with something or leave it. You should really consider asking friends who stopped playing ns2, what made them quit trying in the first place.
Perhaps if you start figuring out why there was a very rapid drop off since release, then you could attempt to solve the player retention problems. And from my own experiance, the biggest issue with ns2 is not the game balance or the features involved, but the lack of any attempt to break things down to a fresh player starting the game. When a person is basically given a gun or a lifeform and a basic "Go get em" they might easily find themselves overwhelmed. Not to mention the harsh punishments ns2 throws at players for failure.
Rush on working out a tutorial system for new players for the next free weekend, and you should have a much better time holding onto newer personal.
A tutorial system would be cool, but I honestly think a form of matching is always a great solution
See quake live - it starts you out vs a bot, depending on how you do against the bot it becomes easier or harder, if the bot owns you, it automatically becomes easier; then from there they make you do a few trick /rocket jump maps, complete the tutorial with good grades and you recieve a high skilled rating, allowing you to face people with this rating (you can still get rated higher by winning a lot) when you join a server with someone on your own level, you know, when it's someone above you the game warns you
Now I'm not saying ns2 needs the exact same thing, but have some type of tut system along with allowing newbies to face off against newbies and competitive players against competitive is just something that I think would be great
I'm one of those players that stopped playing for now (veteran one cause I have spent hundreds of hours playing NS2 and I have also played NS1). I agree with like 10%, maximum 20% of changes written in this changelog. As a title of this mod says, it's a balance mod, not NS 2,5. The most annoying changes (as for me) in this mod are changes to fade. I also thought that fade needs a bit of improvement (of course after marines get many tweaks). Now they are silly. Just want to say as for me and my few friends that we won't play NS2 if like 50% or more of these changes will pass to the game. So you will have 10 players that won't comeback/will stop playing. Now ask others. I bet that many people will say the same thing as me.
Of course we will actively talk about these changes to help you choose the best.
Can't wait for these changes! My only concern is if phantom is properly done. As another poster said, if the camo is too noticeable, then it really takes some of the impact of the upgrade away. I was always saddened by the lack of interest in silence and especially camo. I'm hoping to see phantom become a popular choice as a first upgrade!
I'm still confused about how the skulk movement mechanic works. I haven't had any trouble fighting, but the only way I can increase and maintain my speed is by chaining wallhops like the old skulks movement. As soon as I hit the floor, even if I bunnyhop, I seem to lose speed. I notice that the skulk will make a new sound when he hits the floor, but I don't know if that is supposed to indicate anything.
I like the new egg spawn mechanics and echo, aliens upgrades may be too hard to take down now (since crags, shade, shift help aliens in combat) and the arms lab is still very weak imo.
I'm confused about alien movement code, I loved the old way of moving and skulks are too fast now, they can respond to any threat in a few second even on the other side of the maps which make marines pressure very hard to accomplish effectively.
Building on infestation is interesting (like the armory to trap the onos )
Try and simplify the balance mod a little more, to grow the player base. This should be looked at as an opportunity to bring in more NS2 players, but the changes now make the game more complicated for beginners. Has a very cluttery feel to it atm.
It's very important to be cautious about the implementation of this mod. While I'm starting to like it a lot, and most competitive/hardcore players feel the same way, thought has to be given also to newer and more casual players. This mod, particularly the alien movement system, raises the skill floor and the learning curve pretty significantly. For a game that already has a pretty steep learning curve, and is struggling to maintain a decent playercount partially because of that learning curve and the lack of tutorials or guides, maintaining new players will be made more difficult by the BT mod going live.
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be implemented, but it should come with a set of tutorials that teach players the new movement systems and strategies. The current tutorial videos are not satisfactory in their current state and will become even worse once the BT mod renders them obsolete. This mod will need to come with a good, informative, and intuitive system of introducing new players to NS2 or the game will continue to struggle at retaining players.
The mod will 100% increase the viability of NS2 as a competitive game from the moment it goes live, but thought also has to be given to retaining players at other levels of play.
Try and simplify the balance mod a little more, to grow the player base. This should be looked at as an opportunity to bring in more NS2 players, but the changes now make the game more complicated for beginners. Has a very cluttery feel to it atm.
Actually not imho. For example biomass makes the game easier for field players. For the average gamers 90% of those changes wont affect him anyway. He will get shotguns when they are researched, upgrades as well. The basic strategies dont change that much, except that there are now more of them (that you dont have to use if you just play like before)
Also, infestation damaging structures must go unless infestation spreading through walls is fixed. You know how you can place cyst close to a wall and infestation will spread to other room?
Comments
This would result into a broken game week after week till all changes are in.
its impossible to balance the game with like "only" updating the movement code first.
players will rage even more about "aliens" or "marins" winning all the time then ....
The Skulk's problem was not the skill floor but the skill ceiling. The new movement mechanics are raising the skill ceiling, not the floor. If you put rookies vs rookies, you won't have marines that hit everything that well and thus won't need Skulks that move perfectly around the map either.
But there is simply a point in comp play where a veteran Skulk player had little chance against a veteran marine player with perfect aim. The walljumping is helping this a bit and gives the Skulk something on par to that perfect aim.
Also, you can also look at it from a way that Camo did not get nerfed but Silence got buffed. You can become completely silent AND invisible if you stay still. Did you actually try it out or are you just basing it off the assumption "not 100% invisible = not invisible at all"? Because that's really not the case here. From a distance is it nearly impossible to spot you. A marine needs to get really close and look constantly in your direction to notice a shimmer. The upgrade gets the job done. You are not supposed to become a super invincible and uncatchable by sitting in some corner. Marines players are supposed to have *some* way of finding cloaked aliens without having to use constant scans.
I just played some BT mod and you can, indeed, easily see "cloaked" aliens. It's basically just a giant blur that screams "SHOOT ME!"...
(Edit:) Is Camou using a different shader to shade Cloak? I can definitely see a "cloaked" Drifter or alien from 20 meters way.
Easily is a lie, completely depends on where they are hiding when they're doing it and if they're moving their own camera; keeping themselves completely still while in a blend type area you may not notice them until last second, or they're just hiding and will come out once a team mate arrives. I think the cloaking is very powerful, and am in personal debate if silence should also be attributed to it
I've blended with a wall remaining fully still and had top level players skip right past me, all depends on where you do it and making sure you're not even moving your mouse. Especially if team mates are near by their attention will be focused on where they last heard sound
Because that is clearly easy to learn/understand and not at all luck based. The new camo is just bad.
Vanilla camo is very underpowered; this just makes it worse.
Guess you don't play BT much because it's mixed in with silence (which I think should only scale to a certain degree, being full silent)
And it's not luck based, you can see w/ alien vision off if you're properly cloaked with a wall or sticking out
I do play the BT mod, and it is nice to have silence and camo combined as the two seperate aren't worth much. However, the new camo is silly and luck-based. Only being cloaked on very specific surfaces with no real way to tell if it's working really limits the usability of it.
That couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, concurrent player counts in March were around 2000, not 10000. The 10000 count was from the free weekend only. Secondly, the Gorgeous update is one of the main reasons we lost so many players. Skulks went from fun to unplayable in an instant. I watched as entire servers full of people just quit the game and never came back.
As for your point about the forum population, you are very far from the truth. The forum population doesn't represent the playerbase in the slightest. If anything, the forum posters represent the opposite of the playerbase. If you don't believe me, I have an easy way to show you what I mean. Make a thread here in General Discussion stating that servers with 20+ people are better than small servers and watch how many disagrees you get. Then, load up NS2 and look at the server browser and you'll see how larger servers are far more popular than smaller servers even though the forums would have you believe otherwise.
If you want more proof, just look at the "New Docking" thread. Then go in game and ask random pubbers what they think of Docking. The vast majority greatly dislike the new Docking and rate it lower than even Refinery, which is sad as it was the most popular map in pub games.
These forums are made up of around 75% competitive players, play-testers and map-testers, and long-time NS1 vets that have vastly different opinions than the average player. Changes are based on their feedback and it is destroying the game. The forum posters need to get over their hardheadedness and realize that their opinions aren't universal. If you don't believe me, just look at player counts.
There are so many things that UWE could do to make this game better if only they got information from the actual playerbase and didn't base everything off of forum posts. UWE could do something as simple as adding a feedback box in the main page of the Natural Selection 2 client, where feedback from players is sent directly to the developers.
UWE is a collection of amazing people trying their darnedest to make this game great, and I applaud them for that. They are a small group that doesn't have the resources or manpower to be able to do everything or to do it quickly, and I realize that. They have improved performance and added content, which are both great, but they need to realize what they should be focusing on: the average player. Doing anything else at this point in time will just lead us to the end.
I've the feeling that to see or not an invisible skulk might be too software dependent. Like in Counter-Strike where some DirectX settings (dxlevel in starts option) were refused in some leagues (i.e. dxlevel 81 was enforced) due to unfair smoke/flash duration/opacity (Plus I wouldn't be surprised that some shaders doesn't even run the same on all different video cards).
What I really loved about total invisibility is the fact that everyone, independent of software and hardware, was certain that if they were playing an invisible lifeform, they were truly invisible (i.e. I don't see how a "total invisibility" shader could be problematic).
As for the balance mod; I can say I approve the fact that the Marine Comm can once again drop without cooldown (with marines having cooldown to pick them up).
I just couldnt accept the fact that the gameplay is 170 degree changes from the first time i played ns2
I may not a NS1 player but you should consider my opinion as a relatively new NS2 player and the future NS2 player
The learning curve is getting steeper and there will be a huge gap between new players and casual players.
xxx
Maybe you should instead listen to the 8,000 players that aren't playing. Instead of the active public servers I could count with my fingers at any given time. Who knows, maybe they want a game with more depth, round variation, greater strategic opportunity and a higher skill ceiling to encourage improvement across all roles.
I just hope a lot of work is put into a heavily recommended tutorial before the next big push to try and convince these players to come back and increase retention time of any new ones.
And then increase update rates (capped at 20 I believe), lower interpolation values, make first person spec half decent, implement proper demo recording features and allow demos to be played accurately across NS2 installations, add a chat frame for scrolling through chat history, enable copy and paste for chat and console, add options to server details box for close join and auto join, add console commands for more actions so that things like chuckle can be bound to keys, add a unique key configuration for the commander hotkeys. Wow, I could do this all day. NS2 3.0 on the horizon.
Perhaps if you start figuring out why there was a very rapid drop off since release, then you could attempt to solve the player retention problems. And from my own experiance, the biggest issue with ns2 is not the game balance or the features involved, but the lack of any attempt to break things down to a fresh player starting the game. When a person is basically given a gun or a lifeform and a basic "Go get em" they might easily find themselves overwhelmed. Not to mention the harsh punishments ns2 throws at players for failure.
Rush on working out a tutorial system for new players for the next free weekend, and you should have a much better time holding onto newer personal.
A tutorial system would be cool, but I honestly think a form of matching is always a great solution
See quake live - it starts you out vs a bot, depending on how you do against the bot it becomes easier or harder, if the bot owns you, it automatically becomes easier; then from there they make you do a few trick /rocket jump maps, complete the tutorial with good grades and you recieve a high skilled rating, allowing you to face people with this rating (you can still get rated higher by winning a lot) when you join a server with someone on your own level, you know, when it's someone above you the game warns you
Now I'm not saying ns2 needs the exact same thing, but have some type of tut system along with allowing newbies to face off against newbies and competitive players against competitive is just something that I think would be great
@Jekt
With 249, I can see ticrate going to 60; I never see my framerate near that number anymore (higher ticrate = lower lagcomp)
Of course we will actively talk about these changes to help you choose the best.
I'm confused about alien movement code, I loved the old way of moving and skulks are too fast now, they can respond to any threat in a few second even on the other side of the maps which make marines pressure very hard to accomplish effectively.
Building on infestation is interesting (like the armory to trap the onos
I think you're the first person to say that ever...
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be implemented, but it should come with a set of tutorials that teach players the new movement systems and strategies. The current tutorial videos are not satisfactory in their current state and will become even worse once the BT mod renders them obsolete. This mod will need to come with a good, informative, and intuitive system of introducing new players to NS2 or the game will continue to struggle at retaining players.
The mod will 100% increase the viability of NS2 as a competitive game from the moment it goes live, but thought also has to be given to retaining players at other levels of play.
No... please, no.
Actually not imho. For example biomass makes the game easier for field players. For the average gamers 90% of those changes wont affect him anyway. He will get shotguns when they are researched, upgrades as well. The basic strategies dont change that much, except that there are now more of them (that you dont have to use if you just play like before)